Jake’s River Civilizations Timeline

C - Arrowheads were made by Ancient Chinese

7000 BCE

The arrowheads were made from bone. This is important as you need arrowheads to hunt and fight a war, so the Ancient Chinese must have had an advantage.

M - Early civilizations form

4000 BCE

All of the early civilizations are in or near to modern day Africa. Each one had a government to help make decisions and water to fuel their bodies and plants. We have information about these civilizations because they had documented most of the things that happened.

M - Cities start to grow across Mesopotamia

3500 BCE

Uruk was probably one of the biggest cities in history at that time with a population of 80,000. It was able to grow big because of advanced irrigation. Gilgamesh was a King that was from Uruk. Another city in Mesopotamia was Babylon. It was the center of the Babylonian Empire.

E - Early settlers arrive in the Nile Valley

3500 BCE

The early cities were always near rivers. Egyptians settled along the Nile river or at the delta of the Nile river. The Gods were thought to control what happens with the river and other parts of the Egyptian's world.

I - Indus Valley Civilization begins

3300 BCE

The people who founded the Indus Valley civilizations likely came from Central Asia. It was located by the Indus river which is now where Pakistan and India are. The people in the Indus Valley had tools for measuring length and time, like we do today .

I- Early settlements form in the Indus valley

3100 BCE

Early settlements start to form in the Indus valley near rivers. Being near rivers gave them a fresh source of water and fish. One settlement was called Mehrgarh.

M - The Sumerian language is created

3000 BCE

The Sumerian language also known as native tongue is the language of ancient Sumer and was created using pictures and symbols. While it looks like Egyptian hieroglyphics it's definitely not. In 1900th century the Sumerian language was deciphered.

E - Upper and Lower Egypt unify

2868 BCE

You may think Upper Egypt is to the North and Lower Egypt is to the South, but you'd be wrong. Upper Egypt is to the South and Lower Egypt is to the North. The reason for this is the way that the Nile river flows is south to north. They reunited as one Egypt when King Menes of Upper Egypt conquered Lower Egypt.

M - Gilgamesh comes to power

2800 BCE

Gilgamesh was the ruler of Uruk at some stage between 2800 and 2350 BC. There are a lot of stories about him and he's also the main character in a number of epics because he was a king. In Mesopotamian mythology, during and after his time, he must have been quite famous.

E - First stone pyramids are constructed

2700 BCE

There are many theories on how the pyramids were built some theories suggest how the blocks of stone were made. The Greeks thought that the pyramid builders were slaves but todays archaeologists thought that skilled builders built it as a way of paying their taxes. I don't know how we know how the Greeks found out about the pyramids but I won't ask.

C - Yellow Emperor rules

2696 BCE

The Yellow Emperor still remains important in Chinese culture today. In fact, his wife made the process for making silk cloth. His Chinese name is Huangdi.

E - Pyramids of Giza are finished

2560 BCE

The Pyramids of Giza are the oldest of the Seven Wonders of the World. They are also the only Wonder left standing. There are three larger pyramids and then there are three smaller pyramids.

I - Great Bath at Mohenjo-daro is built

2500 BCE

The Great Bath was likely used as a religious body of water to renew a bather. It was made from a waterproof tar and bricks. It's located in Sindh, Pakistan.

I - Hinduism begins to take form

2300 BCE

Hinduism is likely the most known religion in India. Unlike Buddhism you want to get reborn, but normally into a higher caste. Historians believe that the earliest that Hinduism could have been invented is 2300 BC.

C - The Xia Dynasty begins

2205 BCE

The Xia Dynasty is the first Chinese dynasty to form. Yu the Great was the one who founded the Xia dynasty. This dynasty ended in 1600 BC. The Shang dynasty came next.

M - King Hammurabi's reign ends

1750 BCE

He became King in 1792 BC. King Hammurabi was the first to create a detailed list of laws in Babylonia. These laws were known as the Code of Hammurabi and they were inspired by the Babylonian God of justice.

C - Chinese language created

1200 BCE

The Ancient Chinese wrote the first symbols on bones. The way that the Chinese language was made is that some ancient Chinese people found footprints and they realized different ones meant different animals. Eventually, they realized they could make their own symbols to mean even more things than just animals.

I - Angkor Wat is built

1113 BCE

It was originally built to worship Vishnu, one of the Hindu Gods. Angkor Wat is the biggest religious structure in the world. It is in Cambodia.

C - Great Wall of China built

700 BCE

The Great Wall of China that you've probably heard of before, had sections built as early as 700 BC. There's a pretty good reason why the wall was built - it wasn't just to keep people out but it was also to prevent invaders from escaping with items from the Chinese. The current length of the Great Wall of China is over 13,000 miles long.

I - Siddhartha's Birth

480 BCE

Siddhartha was born into a royal family without much knowledge of the outside world. When Siddhartha discovered the three forms of suffering he asked someone how they could be so calm when so much suffering is around them. It led him into becoming the Buddha.

E- Use of hieroglyphic writing ends

300

Egyptian hieroglyphics are unsurprisingly the formal writing system for Egypt. Have you ever noticed that the Egyptians wrote on the walls on some of their buildings? Egyptian hieroglyphics have been deciphered but that wasn't until 1822, a while after hieroglyphics were discovered.